


Welcome to the Mistakers Anonymous

by Nimon



Category: Original Work
Genre: Comedy, Gen, Slice of Life, University
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-14 04:15:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28664544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nimon/pseuds/Nimon
Summary: Everybody makes mistakes and you shouldn't feel bad about them. In fact, you should even share them to the world, or at least to six other people to start. Welcome to the Mistakers Anonymous!
Kudos: 2





	1. Welcome to the Mistakers Anonymous

“Welcome to the Mistakers Anonymous or MA for short! I’m Thaou, the club’s president. Take a seat, I’ll bring you a name tag.” Okay but what did this man think “anonymous” meant? This wasn’t what she imagined when opening the door : a man was angrily looking at his phone, another one was crying, two people had their back turned to Emel so she couldn’t see what they were doing, and this Thaou guy was looking for something on a table full of treats. The chairs were put in a circle, in the middle of the room, and that’s where everybody was at the moment.

The angry man  suddenly stood up, walked to t he table  at the back  and took everything he could before going back to his seat. Thaou raised his head to smile at him, his eyes disappearing behind his glasses and his long black hair. He then came back with a pen and a tag: “Here, write your name on it.” After doing so and clipping the tag on her sweater, Emel took the only vacant seat: next to the crying man. Great. “Are you okay?” she asked him. He n odded and s niffed before saying “ You’re the first person to talk to me in three weeks .”  What the hell? The guy next to him swallowed a piece of cake  before mumbling: “Maybe because you told us three weeks ago not to talk to you until the end of the semester.”  
  
  


“I think we are ready to start.” Thaou exclaimed standing in front of his chair. He then turned to Emel to tell her: “Since you’re new, you will go last.” Okay? Last for what? The president then took a notebook which read “October” on its cover out of his bag and started flipping through the pages, looking for… something. The frown on his face grew bigger as he kept turning the pages. He then closed the notebook, looked at the cover, opened his mouth as to say ‘ah” but no sound came out, put the notebook back in his bag and took out another one which read “November.” After turning two pages he finally cleared his throat and Emel was relieved because this silence was starting to get embarrassing.

“I made a mistake.” He paused to look at everyone’s face before continuing. “I fell asleep during an exam.”

“Happens to me all the time.” a deep voice said. It was coming from one of the two people whose face Emel couldn’t see at first, probably from the guy.

“Of course it does.” He smiled. “You can’t remain awake for more than four hours straight. Anyway I was driving when I dozed off and I think the examiner won’t give me my driving license because of that.”

“You think?”

“Yeah he said it was the first time in twenty-seven years this ever happened and that he will personally make sure I’m never allowed to touch a car again.”

“Doesn’t sound like someone who won’t give you your driver’s license to me.”

“I know right?” And with that, he sat down. Unbelievable. The man who stole all the cookies was clearly making fun of Thaou but the latter didn’t seem to know about the concept of sarcasm. “Next time I’m drinking all my coffee before going to the exam and not before going to bed.” Poor guy didn’t understand there would never be a next time. “Isaias, it’s your turn.” Said man had stopped crying and was now looking at his feet. His probably very red eyes were hidden by his afro. What it didn’t hide however was the single teardrop which wouldn’t leave his chubby left cheek.  
  
  


“I made a mistake.” He sniffed. “I-I got married.”

“Oh I’m so sorry for you.” The deep voice from before said and it sounded strangely genuine.

“That’s not the problem! She wanted to go to France for our honeymoon. I don’t have as much money as before since I quit my job to go back to school but I still wanted to do something. So I took her to French Village and she hated it so much that she asked for a divorce. It’s been three weeks and I haven’t stopped thinking about her since.”

“Wait, French Village as in the French Village twenty minutes away from here? The village where there’s nothing except for houses?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow. What a drama queen. I don’t understand why she would break up over this.” Eating two kilos of sweets just increased this man’s sarcasm. Or maybe he was born like that.

“I know right?” Why is everybody in this club like this?

Thaou then asked him:  “ How are you going to prevent this mistake to happen again in the future?”

“I’m not falling in love with a woman ever again.” He then looked expectantly at the man next to him. The latter gave him the finger while munching on a biscuit.

Thaou spoke again: “I’m here if you still want to talk.”

“But I don’t want to talk to _you_.” he mumbled.

“Wow. Rude. Anyway it’s your turn Mannan.” Said Mannan finally put down the finger he was holding in Isaias’ face. He had dropped crumbs everywhere: on the floor, his thighs, his face and... his hair? He had a lot of hair, it was brown and messy but some chocolate crumbs could still be seen in there. How is it even possible?  
  
  


“I don’t make mistakes.” he stated.

“That’s what you’ve been saying for the past 5 months, are you sure there isn’t something you can tell us?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

Confusion must’ve been really apparent on her face because Isaias chuckled before explaining to Emel that Mannan came every month just to eat for free. Ma de sense.  To some however, he came because he had a crush on someone here and wanted to see them.  Finally to the others, he wanted to become club’s president  by killing Thaou for his school record.  Whatever was the reason, he ha d decided not  to reveal anything anytime soon.  
  
  


Thaou’s “next person then” forced everybody to turn their attention to a young looking woman, the only other woman in the room. “Katherine” was written on her name tag and she seemed to be half asleep.

“I don’t remember.” Wow, her voice was deep, almost imperceptible, as if she didn’t want people to hear.

“You don’t remember?”

“I don’t remember what I did this month.”

“Why are you wearing Katherine’s name tag?” The man next to her spoke for the first time. His voice was quite high-pitched and grating and it definitely wasn’t him who made these comments earlier. She looked confused. Her glasses slipped a little when she lowered her head to look at the tag.

“Oh.” she started, “I made a mistake.” She then walked to the table and came back with a piece of cake and a name tag which read “Akua.”

“And how did this mistake made you feel?”

“I felt like I wasn’t myself anymore. It was scary.”

“How are you going to prevent this mistake to happen again in the future?”

“I’ll legally change my name?” Maybe she wasn’t just half asleep, she also looked and sounded like she’s been using drugs.

“That’s a solution... I guess. Next person?”  
  
  


The man with a “Shafiq” name tag stroked his beard and looked in the distance as if he was deep in his thoughts. “ I made a mistake. I was babysitting my nephews but I had to study so I gave them a box with toys. The box turned out to be their mother’s sewing supplies and they tied the threads everywhere in the living room. Also they stole my phone and put it in the middle of the threads. I had to move without touching anything to get it back.  When I touched a thread, they hit my fingers and I had to start again. Finally  I stayed to play with them  all afternoon .”

“Doesn’t sound like a mistake to me.”

“Well, my aunt begs to differ. When she came home and saw what we did, she passed out. It took me at least five minutes to go through the threads, I thought she died and the kids were crying. She’s okay now but I’m not allowed in her house anymore and I think she cast a spell on me and all of my friends.” Half of the room was laughing, the other half was probably trying to guess if this was a joke.

“Okay… next time, how, huh?” Thaou looked anxious, probably because of the spell, but Shafiq still understood his question.

“Next time I’ll leave the living room a little earlier and put all the blame on the kids.”

“I thought you were banned from her home?”

“I have a lot of aunts.”  
  
  


Immediately after that,  Akua raised her hand and said, almost murmuring: “I remember now. I killed the wrong person two weeks ago.”

What. The. Hell. Emel’s mouth hanged open for a few seconds before Akua noticed her. “Oh right, you don’t know. I’m a sniper, I kill people for money. That’s my job.” It’s a joke right? She wasn’t really a killer. Right? Emel scanned everybody’s face. She was looking for a confirmation, maybe she heard it wrong. Nobody was reacting and she didn’t know how to interpret it.

“How do you kill the wrong person?”

“I have trouble telling faces apart. Next time I’ll just shoot everyone to be sure.” She turned to Emel: “Are you going to call the cops on me?” She then lowered herself to look for something in her backpack. Did she carry a weapon in the middle of her school supplies? That was it, that was how she would die. However, Akua just took her cellphone to turn it off since it was buzzing. It was getting awkward, Emel tried to think of something to say, anything.

“Huh… How much do you charge?”

“Are you interested?”

“Just curious.”

“Depends on the victim, where they live, their age and so on.”

Mannan took out something from his pocket before asking: “If I give you three dollars, will you shoot Isaias?” The latter looked really hurt and kicked his “friend” on the leg.

“Maybe. I’ll think about it.” He looked even more hurt, if it was even possible.  
  
  


Mannan raised his hand  too and said: “I think I made a mistake.” He was breathing l oudly , very l oudly .

“I hope you regret what you said.” said Isaias.

“Oh! Your first one! I’m gonna cry.” Thaou seemed a little too enthusiast. “Go on please.”

“I just ate something that has peanuts in it, and I’m allergic.” He coughed.

“And how does that make you feel?”

“I feel like I’m gonna die.” He coughed again.

“Great! We are making progress. How are you going to prevent this mistake in the future?”

“Call an ambulance.” And with that, he collapsed on the floor.  
  
  


Twenty minutes later, when Mannan had been taken to a clinic, the meeting proceeded.  Was it always this… lively? Thaou turned to Emel and told her “It’s finally your turn, do you have any mistake you would like to share to the group?” His smile was warm. Looking at him, Emel almost forgot  that a woman cast a spell on everyone here, someone thought of killing one of their friend and then almost died.  Oh and that someone here was some sort of serial killer.

“Well... I made a mistake. I came here because I thought it was the book club.”

“Oh that’s how I came here the first time too.” And when Akua saw Emel’s expression, she added: “It’s not because I shoot people that I can’t have hobbies.”

Thaou as usual, came to the rescue: “ It’s true it’s pretty confusing when two rooms have the same number. And how did that  mistake make you feel?”

“Confused.”

“And how are you going to prevent this mistake to happen again?”

“I’m not. I’ll just come back next month. You look more fun than the book club.”

“How would you know? You’ve never been there.”

“Then welcome for real, Emel! You must know that we love team building so we all take the same class each semester. I’m not forcing you though, it’s just recommended if you want to see us more than once a month.”

“Of course.” she answered. She wasn’t sure she wanted to see these people this much but she liked living dangerously so why not.  
  
  


The next day, someone tried to open the door to the MA  but to no avail.  The person took her phone out to call her friend but when she saw the date  on the screen, she understood. “ Oh.  I made a mistake...”


	2. Mind reading 101

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First team building activity with all the team members.

Team building was fine.  Attending a class called “Orientation to Community Service” was fine too. They would be taught how community service can be beneficial in various aspects. They would also participate in one day of volunteering.  All of this was fine, it didn’t look too boring. What wasn’t fine however was having to attend this class at 7 a.m. Nobody s hould wake up this early and despite b eing enrolled since the beginning of the semester, Katherine  never managed to arrive on time before today. She  thought she deserved a prize or something.  As usual when she didn’t have time to do her hair before morning classes, which meant everyday, she put a headscarf on. Her hair hadn’t seen the sun in weeks and she wished she could just hide like that too.

As usual, Akua was sitting at the back of the classroom, her head rested on the table and she was sleeping. Next to her, Shafiq was drawing something on her arm or maybe her cheek, she couldn’t tell. He fortunately didn’t notice Katherine passing by him, it was way too early to talk to anyone right now. She noticed two familiar tufts of black hair at the front row. One was long and smooth and the other one pointed in every direction. Mannan was scribbling on a piece of paper while Thaou was looking at him. She could talk to them another day. She then spotted Isaias talking to a woman with long curly brown hair and fair skin, probably this Emel who joined the club last weekend. She seemed nice and she knew she had to introduce herself. But she sighed because she had to sit next to Isaias for that and God knows this man loved to talk too much. She saw him pour a Monster Energy drink into what seemed to be a cup of coffee. He then said “I’m going to die” and drank the whole thing. That was it. That was enough Isaias for today, Katherine started to walk to the front row but he unfortunately had to notice her. He was shocked to see her before ten for once and gestured her to come. She reluctantly sat with her friend who introduced her to Emel.

“Before the lesson begins…” Great. What was it today? “I have to make sure nobody can read minds here.” It was worse than what she’d imagined.

“Why?” Emel was as confused as Katherine. Poor girl didn’t know what to expect with this specimen. But Katherine didn’t either and that was the scary part.

“I can’t tell you right now.” he started. “I can’t risk a mind reader to hear what I’m going to say.” At this point Katherine put her head in her hands and sighed, waiting. “We are going to mentally scream, the three of us. If someone flinches, we have our mind reader.”

“Please, don’t make me do this.” Katherine almost begged.

“Why? Are you the mind reader?”

“I’m gonna choke you.”

“Okay on the count of three we’ll all mentally scream. I’ll look at the back of the classroom, Emel will look at the front and Kate will look around our table. Any questions?”

“Why are we friends?”

“So one…”

“I hope the teacher expels you like in high school.”

“Two…”

“Are we really doing this?” This time it was Emel who interfered.

“Three!” Surprisingly, Katherine did it, out of frustration but she still mentally screamed. Isaias looked disappointed. “I would’ve bet Shafiq could read minds, too bad.”

“Why him?”

“Because he’s smart.” Was he though? He didn’t look like it. Except for Mannan and sometimes Thaou, the whole club looked pretty dumb to Katherine, her included.

“I saw this guy flinch. The Tamil one, what’s his name again... Mannan?” Emel said. Oh no. What would she encourage him like that? Isaias looked too pleased, she didn’t like his expression. He wanted to be sure it wasn’t a coincidence and counted to three again. And this time the three of them saw him flinch and leave the classroom immediately after. For Isaias there wasn’t any doubt possible: Mannan heard them scream and had to leave because he couldn’t take it anymore. For Katherine he went to the restroom and Emel just seemed amused by the situation.

D uring the class, Isaias kept staring at the man sitting at the front like he wanted to dig holes in his head. Maybe he wanted to communicate by thinking. Maybe Katherine didn’t care. The teacher t old the class they had two months left to volunteer and write a report about it.  Emel was actively writing everything down since she enrolled in the middle of the semester  and was two months late. It was surprising the teacher even let her enroll this late  but t he class wasn’t really popular so that must’ve been why.  From time to time, she would ask the man what he was trying to  tell them earlier. Since Mannan was listening to the lesson, he couldn’t read minds at the same time so it must’ve been safe to talk.  But Isaias being Isaias, he had to build suspense for whatever reason. He  needed to “take care of the problem” before revealing everything.  Why did he sound like he wanted to kill him?

At lunch time, Mannan went to find Katherine, asking her what was wrong with her annoying friend. Apparently, he skipped class to follow him around and stared at him while grimacing. “Is it how he flirts?” he asked. The thought of an almost two meters tall adult man staring at his crush without saying anything and hoping he falls in love by making eye contact with him was pretty amusing. She just told him about the mind reading theory and advised him to ignore Isaias. “I’ve been ignoring him for months but it’s hard when he’s following me like a stalker.” he answered. “Also, why would I be able to read minds? Why _me_?” She knew he didn’t question where this idea came from because he already knew the answer: because it’s Isaias.

“He saw you flinch and leave class this morning. He says it’s because you heard him mentally scream.” She wasn’t going to include herself or Emel in this, if he wanted to make a fool of himself, he would be alone in this.

“Flinch? Has he ever seen someone hiccup before?” He clearly was tired of him, who wasn’t? That’s why people liked him so much, if life was a story, his would be a continuous disruptive element. Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t feel bored when he was around. Frustrated, Mannan left Katherine with her friends. Oh that’s right, they were here. None of them questioned her about her conversation though. Even them were used to this guy’s shenanigans.

A t the end of the day, the prime suspect texted both Emel and Katherine to meet him in a cafe. He related what he did today which was stalking his friend  for six hours straight . He reached the conclusion that Mannan knew he was there because he heard him mind singing a song from his favorite band. Of course  that would be the only possible explanation .

“But what did you want to tell us this morning?” Emel was giving far too much importance to this man.

“That’s exactly why I summoned you here.” And with that, he started looking for something in his bag.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Monster Energy and the mind reading scenes come from Tumblr posts, respectively from @korrakun and @thatpsychowriter

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for the story comes from [Reedsy](https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts/comedy/write-a-story-about-a-group-of-people-who-meet-eve/)!


End file.
